Dawn of Civilization - an RFC modmod by Leoreth

Status
Not open for further replies.
Civic gameplay elements you lost:

This is rather short, because instead of making entirely new civics you combined old effects. There are a few missing like +1 Prod. to Workshops (how do I put those cute Civ symbols in my text) or Free Units with Vassalage and the corporation stuff (but maybe you just did not write that down?).
There are basically two elements missing: health bonus/better forests and faster workers. The first one was late anyway, but the second is really missing. Anyone with a big territory (especially if they start late like Vikings and Russia) will miss that dearly. In This case I give you my solution now: Guys like Ludwig XIV or some German lords were really big on building infrastructure (canals mostly). The solution is to give it to Absolutism . You nerfed the Vanilla version anyway and it has a very specific use: If you have a good capital and a small empire use it. This makes it a bad choice for Russia or the Vikings.
My solution is to give the "faster workers" to Absolutism (you guessed it already! congratulations ;)). The small empires it was great before will have faster workers too, but they do not have many plots to improve anyway. And it is enabled with Civil Service where Serfdom was before anyway. It will have a dual use now, maintaining a very small empire and staring a new one.

PS @Deon Run Forest run! As soon as you see a scull somewhere you run with your units as far away from you cities as possible and wait.
 
Exactly, just keep 3 tiles between your units and any infected city, and you get no damage. Doesn't work while you're at war, obviously ;) I don't do it anymore for roleplay reasons, but still.

@Missing civic effects:

+1 prod for workshops:
Do you think this is missing? Or neglegible anyway?

Free units:
Has moved to Aristocracy. Isn't displayed properly, though.

Corporation stuff:
You're right, I simply forgot to mention them. For the civics that stayed, the effect is exactly the same as in vanilla.

Worker speed:
Okay, Absolutism is one idea. What about replacing the +50% GG birth effect of Aristocracy with it - or does that come too early?
 
Seems I don't even know my own civic changes :crazyeye: So much to be done, so few spare moments to actually play :(

News from the front, guys: I finished my crusade against the TARGA file format and claimed "Civ names are now displayed correctly when running Zoroastrian state religion or owning the Buddhist holy city" as my rightful trophy :D

The Bireme bug and Zoroastrian adjective error should also be fixed. The fixes will be released when I have enough features for a version 1.3.
 
Of course. Simply extract it into your mod folder (not the RFC Dawn of Civilization folder) and agree to overwrite.
 
I forgot the movement of Caste System in the last paragraph. This is mostly a problem for Babylon and Egypt, because of their cultural goals. Using Wonders to help here seems like a good plan, but using Stonehenge/Sphinx is a Problem for Babylon, because they have to tech for writing immediately, so Egypt will get it instead. This is good for Greece, they have to tech for philosophy anyway and they can use the boost and it makes a lot of sense historically. I don't know what to do about Babylon though, perhaps we can do something with the hanging gardens so they can get em instead of china. Its a Babylonian problem, but it is historically more accurate and with the Sphinx change a good gameplay change for everyone else.

I am going to skip some of the stuff I hinted at and give you some conclusions now (why? because I want to! ;)):

1. What is the difference between a theocratic and a monarchic government? In the first case the church should be the government and in the second the ruler is claiming to be appointed by god. There is a difference, but you have a similar concept with state church and you can model a theocracy with Monarchy + State Church.
If you gain a government slot that would be great, because your republic has a problem, after philosophy the specialist requirements don't matter any more. You can use merchants, before you can build markets, grocers and banks. And you can use republic to get very big towns in the middle ages, which is historically wrong. Also you get a "craZy" unit production synergies with Theocracy, Vassalge, Aristocracy and state church. (+5 Exp, +25% Unit-:hammers:, some free units and lower unit maintance) and you can get that in the middle ages.
I talked about the sovereign state before and as a matter of fact in political science we only use the concept of states to describe modern (18Jhr-X) societies. I propose to make a new civic called "Sovereignty" and give the town growth + something else to it. Drafting would be historically correct, but we have this with autocracy. And we need something to make it useful all the time. Town growth is strong, but if all twons are developed it gets useless. We could move +2:commerce: from towns here, buying stuff with capitalism will still be strong, but a link between the emerging of states and Capitalism is good anyway. maybe you have an idea - i'll think about it some more.
You can call Republic something like Polis (very greek) or to use a broader term "City state" - this would be accurate of the Roman Republic too and if you use it in the middle ages it represents the rise of cities like Venice or the Hanse. Because I took away the town growth, we should give it something new. What do you think about giving something like an unconditional +1:) with markets? The marketplace of Athina was [the] the place to talk about politics (and philosophy) and the roman market is replaced by the forum anyway and it would work with the concept of the medieval cities.

PS: You can call Representation Republic and Parliamentarism Democracy, because thoses names where very close and this way the difference between the English Republic in the 19Jhr and a Democracy today is more clear.
 
I like those ideas very much, especially city state which fits Venice, ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, Genoa, and the fact that they all had a special cultural and political value for markets and the likes.
 
I still think better markets is a good idea but + :) is not very good, markets give :) anyway. Maybe they give :science: instead. Well something! Or we give it the +1 :hammers: with workshops back, but I like the markets better.

I know what to give to Sovereignty: We take "-50% maintenance from distance to capital" from the new Representation, which was fine anyway and give it to Sovereignty and keep the ":mad: if you don't have it" from emancipation. This would simulate the stronger political/governmental ties within a sovereign state (universal taxes, registry offices, etc.) and the :mad: without would be a token for the fights for nationhood (america -> french -> germany etc.) and an incentive to keep it for everyone. And today except some failed states every state today claims sovereignty.
 
I don't know what to do about Babylon though, perhaps we can do something with the hanging gardens so they can get em instead of china. Its a Babylonian problem, but it is historically more accurate and with the Sphinx change a good gameplay change for everyone else.
I was already considering to allow Hanging Gardens with Code of Laws along with the new wonder changes, which would make them fit better into Babylonia's teching. Chinese Hanging Gardens are highly improbable now anyway, because they require marble and China has none.

1. What is the difference between a theocratic and a monarchic government? In the first case the church should be the government and in the second the ruler is claiming to be appointed by god. There is a difference, but you have a similar concept with state church and you can model a theocracy with Monarchy + State Church.
Agree here, Theocracy feels out of place there, and I only kept it because I had no better ideas.

If you gain a government slot that would be great, because your republic has a problem, after philosophy the specialist requirements don't matter any more. You can use merchants, before you can build markets, grocers and banks. And you can use republic to get very big towns in the middle ages, which is historically wrong. Also you get a "craZy" unit production synergies with Theocracy, Vassalge, Aristocracy and state church. (+5 Exp, +25% Unit-, some free units and lower unit maintance) and you can get that in the middle ages.
I suggest you actually start to play the modmod or at least read the version feature notes. :p Republic has now +50% :gp: and Socialism got unlimited specialists. Disagree about specialist requirements being useless ... a decent SE is impossible without it, and given how much food compared to space there is in RFC (especially for civs like England or Japan), SE is even more powerful than in vanilla.

Republic is now very viable, and becomes a must-have civic if you're out for the UHVs of Netherlands or the USA, which I think is very historical.

The crazy unit combo won't stay, though.

I talked about the sovereign state before and as a matter of fact in political science we only use the concept of states to describe modern (18Jhr-X) societies. I propose to make a new civic called "Sovereignty" and give the town growth + something else to it. Drafting would be historically correct, but we have this with autocracy. And we need something to make it useful all the time. Town growth is strong, but if all twons are developed it gets useless. We could move +2 from towns here, buying stuff with capitalism will still be strong, but a link between the emerging of states and Capitalism is good anyway. maybe you have an idea - i'll think about it some more.
You can call Republic something like Polis (very greek) or to use a broader term "City state" - this would be accurate of the Roman Republic too and if you use it in the middle ages it represents the rise of cities like Venice or the Hanse. Because I took away the town growth, we should give it something new. What do you think about giving something like an unconditional +1 with markets? The marketplace of Athina was [the] the place to talk about politics (and philosophy) and the roman market is replaced by the forum anyway and it would work with the concept of the medieval cities.
I intended the term "Republic" to represent both ancient republics (Greek city states, Roman Republic ...), medieval republics (Venice, Genoa, ...) and modern republics. Like with the social/economic civics, it's the combination that counts:

Republic+Direct Rule: republics for small city states were the democracy was often executed directly: Athens, Rome, Venice.
Republic+Vassalage: Think Poland-Lithuania.
Republic+Absolutism: I picture that as one-party-governments, although the term itself is not altogether fitting.
Republic+Representation/Parliamentarism: modern republics (USA, France, Germany ...)

I don't think any British citizen would call the UK a republic, because it's, well, a kingdom :)

I put a lot of thought into my ambition to make every government decision viable (both gameplay- and historywise) regardless of all other civics and regardless of time period, so I'm not very excited about splitting Republic into a classical and a modern concept.

If you have another idea for a Theocracy replacement, bring it on :)

PS: You can call Representation Republic and Parliamentarism Democracy, because thoses names where very close and this way the difference between the English Republic in the 19Jhr and a Democracy today is more clear.
Considering you're studying political science, it might be suicidal to argue with you, but I've always thought the following:

Republic = a form of state
Democracy = a form of government

There are democratic republics (no, not that one :D USA, France, Germany), democratic non-republics (UK, Sweden, Spain ...), non-democratic republics (arguably the PRC, but Poland-Lithuania is a better example) and of course, non-democratic non-republics.
Both terms exist separately from each other, so making them mutually exclusive seems unwise to me.

I'm still not happy about those names, especially because one can easily confuse which means what. My intention is:

Representation = "incomplete democracy". Think early British Empire, or the Japanese and (second) German Empire. There is a constitution and a parliament with limited rights, parliamentarists are from a social elite, there is census suffrage or at least no universal suffrage.
Parliamentarism = "modern democracy". Think western countries. There's universal suffrage, power lies with the parliament, no decisions unlegitimated by the public.

I especially wanted to have the following interpretations:

Monarchy + Representation = Constitutional Monarchy
Monarchy + Parliamentarism = Democratic Monarchy

I've though a lot about a better name for Representation, but was unable to find any. Maybe you have an idea?


I also definitely don't want to include the "unhappiness unless you adopt it" effect. Civics are about choices, and making a choice obligatory at a certain point is in no way interesting.
 
On the last part: I would call it Representation and Democracy (the , after thinking about it representation is a nice term for it, because you can even represent the last days of the "Ständesystem" (sry to all English speaking people I don't know the word) in France or Germany with it and you have all forms of unequal representation in here. The Problem with Parliamentarism is that the early English empire had a parliament (house of lords).

The thing with meaning of terms in political science is, that we don't have 1 but 1000 different meanings and we creat new ones all the time. The 2 basic meanings of republic would be a) "an orientation of the government at the common good" and b) (and this would be more me) "the concept of a demos ruling itself

I still think sovereignty is the best choice here, because there is a BIG difference between a modern government and the government of a greek polis or the medieval merchant towns. The concept of sovereign states should be in there and your government civic is the perfect place. (btw I stop arguing after this ;))

And you should put your updates on the first page :p

PS Btw I think you did a much better job here than Fraxis about representing political/social/economical changes, I am arguing because I think you did a good job! (So you are possible to save unlike the original game :D;))
 
I have a few observations.

1) War with independent leader gives diplo bonus for "our mutual military struggle" while it shouldn't. It's minor but still.

2) Persian AI settles "Shush" 1 tile north of the coast which denies the oil which in the sea. Could you make it to settle closer or change one of the tiles under Shush to coast to give it access to the sea?
 
The Problem with Parliamentarism is that the early English empire had a parliament (house of lords).
My reasoning was that because there is something called a parliament, it doesn't have to be the institution with the actual power.

The thing with meaning of terms in political science is, that we don't have 1 but 1000 different meanings and we creat new ones all the time. The 2 basic meanings of republic would be a) "an orientation of the government at the common good" and b) (and this would be more me) "the concept of a demos ruling itself
I feared that :D
My definition would be "the absence of any autocratic government", especially in the antithesis Kingdom <-> Republic.

PS Btw I think you did a much better job here than Fraxis about representing political/social/economical changes, I am arguing because I think you did a good job!
Thanks! I also like your ideas and always gave them appropriate consideration. So please don't think I'm arguing against you "to be right" :)

1) War with independent leader gives diplo bonus for "our mutual military struggle" while it shouldn't. It's minor but still.

2) Persian AI settles "Shush" 1 tile north of the coast which denies the oil which in the sea. Could you make it to settle closer or change one of the tiles under Shush to coast to give it access to the sea?
Aren't those both also present in RFC? Shush is spawned since RFC, and I don't think a changed anything that affected Natives or diplomacy in general.
 
Can someone please tell me why I can't get this modmod to run? This is what I did:

I have latest RFC mod, as well as RFC:Europe, and they both work just fine.
I downloaded the latest version of Dawn of Civilization and extracted to the Mods folder.
I go into Civ4 and can load the mod with no problems, but when I go to "Play a Scenario," the map does not appear!

Frustrating because I've never had a problem playing modmods before.
 
Did you try to start the scenarios directly? To do so, go to ".../Mods/RFC Dawn of Civilization/PublicMaps/" and choose the scenario you want to play. The modmod then should start automatically, if everything is right.
 
You can also by going thru the advanced feature load the mod thru there. There are some mods that I have that only work this way.
 
I thought I'd post a little preview of the things I've already included into the upcoming version 1.3:
Spoiler :
  • Unique Civ-specific Great People Mod by Gaius Octavius
    Now every civilization* has its own set of names for each type of great person.
    No Benjamin Franklin in Ancient Egypt or Akbar in modern Japan anymore!
  • Civilizations missing unique GP names are: Netherlands, Portugal, Khmer, Maya, Ethiopia
  • Plague enabled again, but units are only harmed until they are at 50% damage.
  • Added the following wonders:
    • Ishtar Gate (Monarchy): +100% enemy war weariness
    • Theodosian Walls (Construction, Catholicism): -100% bombard damage (except vs. Gunpowder)
    • Terracotta Army (Pottery, Taoism): +50% great general rate
    • La Mezquita (Theology, Islam): +1 research per specialist
    • Dome of the Rock (Divine Right, Islam): -50% war weariness
    • Topkapi Palace (Paper, Islam): works as government center
    • Brandenburg Gate (Nationalism): +100% great general rate within cultural borders
  • Changed the effects of the following wonders:
    • Statue of Zeus: free pagan temples
    • Pyramids: -33% hurry costs
    • Sphinx: adds 5 artist slots
    • Parthenon: allows all government civics
    • Hagia Sophia: +50% great people birth in all cities
    • Temple of Salomon: now only +2 gold per religious building
    • Kremlin: Renamed St. Basil's Cathedral, new effect: +2 espionage per specialist
  • Fixed the Bireme graphics bug (1.23 hotfix)
  • Fixed the civ name display bug (1.23 hotfix)
  • Added missing change of the Confucian/Zoroastrian adjective (1.23 hotfix)
  • Phoenicia gets its settler + army + workers at Qart-Hadasht in 820BC again (if controlled by the AI)
  • Removed Edinburgh spawn, England gets an additional settler instead
  • excluded Sicily from Roman spawn area
 
I played a Greek game yesterday and I have something to say about it. I managed to conquer most of the known world with relative ease (Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia and even Italy (Persia is in progress) and the main credit goes just one building: The Sphynx. Its power is was as unfair as it gets because +25% military unit production from Totalitarianism gives the civ running it a decisive advantage over the rest; it's also the best civic to use in the early ages as city sizes stay relatively small and you pretty much have to go with raw yield economy. Monarchy, in this sense, also relies on Totalitarianism and State Church to get its happiness going.

Wichtel's take on civics also has a point on State Church/Pacifism. Now that I'm ready to try a new game with new test civics I'll test a +50%:gp: State Church and how Vassalage would work with +25% unit :hammers: modifier and Totalitarianism with +2 exp, to give some point in late game Fascism.

But there's one more thing I'd like to share in my Greek game. After I conquered all my rivals' lands, I had very little to do but reluctantly start researching Optics. While cycling through my Alexandrian empire, I realized something. Where does it all lead next? India. Since there's been endless debates should Greece have a more conquest-oriented UHV or be left as a peaceful mercantile country, it came to me there's one solution to satisfy both side's demands. "Control X cities in India in/by Y AD". Since you can reach India by both land and sea, it would allow both an aggressive or defensive game, up for the player to choose. If you're worried about players sending their initial Galley there, just increase the pressure from Barbarian Triremes around East and West Africa or make the Cape of Good Hope ocean like Corossol did. It will be easier to ram your way there anyway.

PS: Awesome that you included a list updates. :goodjob:
 
Well, as you may have already seen, the Sphynx will not be nearly as powerful as before (I tried to recreate the Stonehenge -> Caste System -> hire many artists gambit for the cultural UHV conditions of Egypt/Babylonia).
Parthenon now enables all government civics, which seems more reasonable to me, because they all come much earlier. It also enables an early Greek or Roman republic, which I hope will allow us to see a classical Hellenic Republic or SPQR more often :)

(It just crossed my mind to change SPQR to "Senatus Populusque Romanus", which looks a lot more impressive on the main screen. Or should it be "Senate and People of Rome", because civ names are always translated ...?)

For Greece, I'd like to include Alexander's conquests for the UHV. If you are forced to control Egypt, Phoenicia and Babylonia by 330 BC, constructing all those wonders in the meantime won't be as easy as it is now. Although your "permanent Bactria" alt-history scenario is also very interesting :)

My current to-dos are basically to add distinctive music for every leader and to catch all obvious bugs. And it would be nice to have actual unique names for the missing civs, but my time is too limited to research them.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom